The present invention relates generally to pickup assemblies, i.e., transducers, for musical instruments. The present invention relates more particularly to a pickup assembly for stringed instruments, wherein the pickup assembly senses vibration mainly in the X-axis direction but is substantially insensitive to vibrations in the Y-axis direction.
Pickups for stringed musical instruments are well known. One common example of such a pickup assembly is the transducer of an electric guitar, which converts movement, i.e., vibration, of the guitar strings into electrical signals which may be amplified and/or otherwise modified so as to provide the desired volume and/or sound effects. Pickups allow relatively quiet instruments to be heard when played with other louder instruments, or when played to large audiences.
Previous pickup assemblies have included body pickups, string pickups and three axis accelerometer pickups. The body pickup assembly is attached directly to the top of the guitar, often behind the bridge, and can be typically formed from a piezoelectric sensor material such as piezoelectric crystal or film. Because each guitar is unique, it is difficult to determine the optimal location to mount the pickup on a guitar body to obtain the highest quality sound. Finding the optimal pickup mounting location which will result in the highest sound quality can require numerous hours and often days of experimentation with each guitar. Also, due to the large distance from the body pickup to the instrument strings, feedback is a problem. The feedback problem precludes stringed instruments which incorporate body pickups from being played very loudly.
String pickups, including undersaddle pickups, eliminate or reduce the feedback problem, but do not provide optimum levels of sound quality. String pickups primarily detect vibrations from the strings and not the guitar body and as a result, the full sound quality of the guitar is not reproduced.
Three axis accelerometer pickups, which detect motion in the X, Y and Z axes directions, provide a relatively good sound quality but are not consistently dependable. Such pickups are mounted on a small box-shaped enclosure that is placed preferably inside the guitar under the saddle on the bridge plate. These pickups are very difficult to optimally place on the guitar because the microdynamics of the bridge plate are so different from guitar to guitar.
It is desired to provide to the art a pickup for stringed instruments which detects vibrations mainly transverse the string direction (the X-axis direction), combines the sound of both the guitar body and the strings, and is easy to place to obtain optimum sound quality.
The present invention is directed to a pickup assembly for a stringed musical instrument. The pickup assembly comprises an elongated beam having first and second ends with at least one slit through the top surface thereof. The slit, which is at an angle that is generally perpendicular to the axis along the length of the beam, has at least one sensor extending there-across. The sensor produces an electrical signal in response to a change in dimension of the gap that defines the slit where the gap dimension changes in response to vibrations from the instrument. At least one contact pad is in electrical contact with the sensor and transmits the electrical signal from the sensor to a wire for transmissions to a pre-amplifier.
It is understood that changes in the specific structure shown and described herein may be made within the scope of the claims without departing from the spirit of the invention.